Wednesday, February 3, 2016

"...Those who believe are overflowing in their love for Allah..."(Quran, 2:165)

Love for Allah is the key to success that pushes the person toward righteousness. Thus obedience to Allah not only becomes easy but a delight.

When love enters the heart a person no longer views worship and obedience to Allah as an obligation, but rather as a gift. Therefore that person derives tremendous pleasure from worship and obedience.

As a result one finds it easy to wake in the night without the need for an alarm clock, for he cherishes each opportunity to worship and remember Allah. The internal clock in the heart becomes sufficient as love wakes him and keeps him awake for long periods of the night.

"Their limbs do forsake their beds of sleep the while they call on their Lord in fear and hope" [Quran, 32:16]

Madly in love with Allah, such people remain restless throughout the night and greet the dawn with longing faces.

A formal relation or a legal tie can never replace true love; for mere form or legality leaves loopholes and finds backdoors, knows of willful interpretations and legal hair-splittings, and gets bored and grows weary.

True love, on the other hand, knows no misconstruing, no exhaustion, no boredom, for it is the wound as well as the balm, the path as well as the destination. A Persian poet says:

Lovers know not the journey's exhaustion: Love itself is the path, love the destination!

Our Nights Vs Sahaba's Nights:

If one were to have walked through the streets of Madinah in the last portion of the night during the time of the Companions, he would have discovered an entire city alive and illuminated with the blessings of worship. Whether in loud or soft voices, every house would be buzzing with the recital of the Holy Quran like honeybees around their hive.Unfortunately nowadays the situation is very different. Walking during the same portion of the night through any Muslim city, the same person would encounter only the deathly silence of a graveyard. Sadly, the blessings and glory of late night worship are no longer seen, as people remain sound asleep in their warm beds.

The following Dua is reported from the Holy Prophet ﺻﻠﯽ الله ﺗﻌﺎﻟﯽٰ ﻋﻠﯿﮧ ﻭﺍٓﻟﮧ ﻭﺳﻠﻢ asking Allah for His love and joy of worship that highlights the link between them:

"O Allah! Make my love for You the most beloved thing to me, and my fear for You the most fearful thing to me, and remove from me all worldly needs and wants by instilling a passion for meeting You, and when You have given the people of the world the pleasures of their world, make the coolness of my eyes (pleasure) in worshipping You." (Kanzul ‘Ummal: On the authority of Abi Malik)